Friday, October 11, 2013

TABE Keynote 2014

Supported by Research or Not Supperted by Research? Keynote TABE 2014, S. Krashen
EARLY LITERACY IS THE ANSWER (early phonemic awareness and phonics)
Very early: phonemic awareness
  1. PA training > better in PA, not better in reading
  2. Low PA can read OK.
  3. Develops on it's owm – comparison groups of training studies improve
  4. The result of reading
Phonics
A. Intensive systematic phonics/basic phonics/zero phonics
B. intensive better than lighter? But only for tests of pronouncing words outloud presented in a list; tiny or no impact on reading comprehension
Garan, Elaine. (2001). Beyond the smoke and mirrors: A critique of the National Reading Panel report on phonics. Phi Delta Kappan 82, no. 7 (March), 500-506.
Garan, Elaine. (2004).
In Defense of Our Children. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Krashen, S. Does Intensive Decoding Instruction Contribute to Reading Comprehension? Knowledge Quest 37 (4): 72-74, 2009 (http://sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=4)
C. rules yet to be described/many complex/different programs teach different rules. Predictors of later literacy attainment
PIRLS. Early literacy
= percentage of parents who report that their child can do the following "very well" before entering school “very well”:
A.Recognize most of the letters of the alphabet./B. Read some words./C. Read sentences/D. Write letters of the alphabet/E. Write some words.
Tasks have little or nothing to do with reading comprehension.
NEGATIVE Relationship to reading comprehension at age 10: r = - .38 (p = .011) Similar results from
Senechal, M and LeFevre, J. 2002.
Early lit (emergent lit) the result of "teaching"
Beginning of grade 1

Not a significant predictor of reading at grade 3
THERE IS A SEVERE STEM CRISIS
"... the impending shortage of scientists and engineers is one of the longest running hoaxes in the country" (Bracey, 2009).
There is a surplus: Two to three qualified graduates for each science/tech opening.

Emerg Lit
r2
Sig
Par print
0.05
0.05
PA
0.35
0.001
Receptive
0.35
Ns
Storybook
0.37
Ns
Teaching
0.41
0.05
RC gr 3
r2
Sig
LC
0.56
0.001
Emerg Lit
0.57
Ns
Book Exp
0.64
0.01
Salzman, Hal, and Lowell, B. Lindsay. 2007. Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1034801
Salzman, Hal, & Lowell, B. Lindsay. 2008. "Making the grade.: Nature 453 no. 1: 28-30.

Salzman, Hal. 2012. "No shortage of 1ualified American STEM grads" (5/25/12) http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-foreign-stem-graduates-get-green-cards/no-shortage-of- qualified-american-stem-grads.
Teitelbaum, Michael. 2007.
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, November 6, 2007
The US is producing more Ph.D.s in science than the market can absorb. Weismann, Jordan. 2013. "The Ph.D bust: America's awful market for young scientists—in 7 charts." The Atlantic, Feb. 20. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-americas-awful-market-for-young- scientists-in-7-charts/273339/
About 1/3 of college-bound high-school students take calculus. David Bressoud. Calculus in high school: Too much of a good thing? www.macalester.edu/~bressoud/talks/2011/portland-apcalc.pdf
Abour 5% of jobs require this much math. Handel, M 2010. “What Do People Do at Work? A Profile of U.S. Jobs from the Survey of Workplace Skills, Technology, and Management Practices (STAMP)” (OECD, forthcoming).
WE MUST TEACH ACADEMIC LANGUAGE DIRECTLY, USING WONDERFUL NEW APPROACHES SUCH AS FLOCABULARY AND SIOP Flocabulary: rap songs, "Educational Hip-Hop":
Study 1:14 words in 20 hours, compared to doing nothing
Study 2: exposed ot 540 words in one year, only 135 learned
Study 3: Flocaboulary students do better on state tests. Sample sizes small. Previous

years' tests not included in analysis.
SIOP: Mixed bag – make input more comprehensible, but output, correction focused on.

  1. Validity study. r2 = .22, 12 teachers, not enough subjects
  2. Studies comparing SIOP-trained teachers with non-SIOP trained teachers.
(1) small effect sizes,
(2) only 2/4 produce significant results,
(3) 3 of 4 done by SIOP creators;
(4) information missing on students, activities of comparison groups,
(5) SIOP teachers sometimes specially selected.
Krashen, S. 2013. Does SIOP research support SIOP claims? International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching. 8,1: 11-24.
Reading and Vocabulary
Review of research: Krashen (2004)
UK Study: Sullivan, A. & Brown, M. 2013. Social inequalities in cognitive scores at age 16: The role of reading. London: Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education, University of London www.cls.ioe.ac.uk
more reported pleasure reading of books at ages 10 & at age 16 significantly related to scores on vocabulary, spelling and math tests given at age 16.

Predictors of vocabulary test scores at age 16
V ariable
beta
p-value
SES: higher job status
-0.012
0.613
Parent has degree
0.255
0
Higher income family
0.02
0.542
Read to everyday at age 5
0.115
0.01
Reads books often at age 10
0.313
0
Visits library often at age 10
0.009
0.791
Reads newspapers more than once/week at age 16
0.183
0
Reads comics/magaines more than once/week at age 16
-0.074
0.021
Reads books more than once/week at age 16
0.353
0
Reading proficiency at age five
0.039
0
Pictoral vocab at age five
0.091
0
Reading proficiency at age 10
0.117
0
From Sullivan and Brown (2013), table 7, model 4, based on 3,424 subjects.
SES job status: Levels 1 to 3 in the Goldthorpe Schema, which consists of seven levels. 1 inclues "higher grade professionals", 2 includes higher-grade technicians, managers in enterprises, 3 includes routine non- manual jobs, 7 includes semi-skilled and unskilled workers.

WE NEED TO FOCUS MORE ON NON-FICTION
Argument: students need to learn to read real-world demanding texts (1) Can light reading supply enough academic vocabulary?
Light reading as the bridge: Krashen, S. 2012. Developing academic proficiency: Some hypotheses. International Journal of Foreign Langauge Teaching, (2): 8-15. (available at ijflt.com)
(2) ALL FVR/SSR studies involve fiction!
WE NEED BETTER AND MORE PRECISE WAYS OF EVALUATING TEACHERS, SUCH AS VALUE-ADDED MEASURES
1) VAM is unstable, unreliable
Teacher-rating plan flawed (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2, 2012)
The Chicago Public Schools have decided that student test scores gains will be used as part of

teacher evaluation [“Teacher ratings overhaul forges on despite lack of union approval, March 31]. Everything is wrong with this plan. A number of studies have shown that rating teachers using test score gains does not give consistent results. Different tests produce different ratings, and the same teacher’s ratings can vary from year to year, sometimes quite a bit.
In addition, using test score gains for evaluation encourages gaming the system, trying to produce increases in scores by teaching test-taking strategies, not by encouraging real
learning. This is like putting a match under the thermometer and claiming you have raised the temperature of the room. We are all interested in finding the best ways of evaluating teachers, but using student test-score gains is a lousy way to do it.

Stephen Krashen,
Different tests produce different ratings: Papay, J. 2010. Different tests, different answers: The stability of teacher value-added estimates across outcome measures. American Educational Research Journal 47,2. Vary from year to year: Sass, T. 2008. The stability of value-added measures of teacher quality and implications for teacher compensation policy. Washington DC: CALDER. (National Center for Analysis of
Longitudinal Data in Educational Research.) Kane, T. and Staiger, D. 2009. Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation. NBER Working Paper No. 14607 http://www.nber.org/papers/w14607; http://www.suntimes.com/news/11611740-418/city-officials-plan-to-tie-teacher-ratings-to-stu dent-test- results.htm
2) Is there a crisis in teacher quality?
International test scores near top of world when poverty is controlled. Products of our schools do very well: The U.S. economy is ranked fifth most innovative in the world out of 142 (2013 Global Innovation Index), based in part on the availability of education, new patents, publication of scientific & technical journal articles.

TECHNOLOGY THE ANSWER: FLIPPED CLASSROOMS, ONLINE TESTING
Flipped Classrooms & Khan Academy Fever:from a supplement to the core
No research but we should do it anyway?
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational- leadership/mar13/vol70/num06/Evidence-on-Flipped-Classrooms-Is-Still-Coming-In.aspx
Kahn: "In the description of his forthcoming book, he is described as having “established himself as an outsider, with no teaching background to tie him to
broken models."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-well-does-khan-academy- teach/2012/07/27/gJQA9bWEAX_blog.html
Online testing: all students must have access to the internet, up-to-date; constant upgrading and replacement. Untested and VERY expensive, with no end in sight.
SCHOOLS OF EDUCATION ARE DOING A LOUSY JOB OF TEACHER EDUCATION: TFA IS THE WAY.
No evidence of a teacher quality problem. Student attainment is good, products of educational system do well.
TFA – the evidence for math: very small effects, unusual sample of TFA teachers.
Comments by Rubinstein and Vasquez at: http://dianeravitch.net/category/teach-for-america-tfa/
3. Veteran teachers are vital.
In the Austin Statesman, in response to an essay on how new teachers are the best because they
are more enthusiastic & work harder, that we only need teachers for a couple of years.
Re: Sept. 6 column, “Rookie teachers provide energy, fresh approaches.”
When Esther Cepeda describes all the committed work and sacrifices of rookie teachers, doesn’t she realize that these same responsibilities apply to career teachers? Experienced teachers must continually rekindle enthusiasm to be effective, but their experience is invaluable.
For instance, one of the founders of KIPP, Dave Levin, was an intern at Teach for America. He was failing miserably in his high- poverty, Houston school with only six weeks of summer training. One day Levin visited the classroom across the hall and met Harriet Ball, a master teacher in her forties. He studied her techniques and incorporated them into his practice, as well as those of master teacher Rafe Esquith. He and Michael Feinberg later founded the KIPP schools on those principles.
The success of novice teachers depends on the experience and wisdom of career teachers. The ideal school blends the expertise of the master teachers with the enthusiasm of the best newbies. We learn from each other. If teaching becomes a rotation of two-year novices, as Cepeda advocates, we are in trouble.

Sara Stevenson
A CONJECTURE The .01% want as much of the (at least) 500 billion we spend yearly on education as they can get. One way to get a lot of it is replace teachers with temps, and technology > no more benefits, retirement pay, etc.
1.Keep pressure on teachers by making their lives as difficult as possible and their task totally impossible. The common core standards and tests are a major part of this.
2. Continue to attack the teaching profession: The message will continue to be that the US is in economic trouble because of bad education, which is because of bad teachers.The public, media, and politicians will then have no sympathy for teachers’ pointing out how difficult teaching has become, This will be seen as "whining," and teachers will then resign/quit in greater numbers.
3. Continue to stress the importance of teacher evaluation, This sends the message that teachers are not doing their job & that there are a lot of bad teachers out there who must be identified and fired.
4.Continue to push the idea that TFAs as just as good or better than experienced teachers.
5. Do not reward teachers for experience, for years of service. This will also encourage more experienced teachers to retire/resign, creating more room for lower-paid temps in the system. 6. Gradually increase the percentage of teachers who are temps as teachers retire and as they leave the profession because of frustration, This releases money because experienced teachers cost much more than temps. The result is more money for technology.
7. Continue to convince the public that all technology is wonderful. Use this to push flipped classrooms and glorify the Khan Academy. The role of teachers will then be diminished to the equivalent of TA’s. This reduces time spent in classrooms (lowers salaries even more), and lowers the status of teachers even more, as well as saving more salary money and increasing teacher frustration. Hire part-timers (no benefits) to serve as supplements to virtual teaching. This will be promoted as expanded opportunity for jobs, no teaching credential required. The public will accept this because they will have lost all respect for teacher credentials.

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